What We Really Think About People Who Are “Quirky”

Girls and guys alike these days are getting way too excited when someone is called “quirky.” Meaning odd yet endearing, this adjective is used to describe friends and celebrity crushes alike, and is actually pretty hysterical in that it ostensibly tells people that it’s now cool to be weird. “She’s so different,” people will say about a so-called quirky girl, “she’s not afraid to be herself!” Suddenly wearing thick-rimmed glasses has become a human rights issue, and it’s time somebody called bullshit.

To set the record straight, people don’t like quirky girls because they’re weird. They like them because they’re attractive, and therefore allowed to act somewhat weird if they feel like it. The irony of this term, especially as an “accepting” alternative to the mainstream betch, is that no one acknowledges a pretty fucking obvious fact: it only applies to people that are pretty and skinny. No one that’s ugly and weird is getting tons of positive attention for being so “original.” For that group, well…you’re just plain weird. Shouldn’t you be conducting a séance in a Hot Topic right now or something?

Truthfully, there’s a shit ton of actually weird people in this world living perfectly strange lives, and I’m pretty sure none of them are being called quirky. I know this because I occasionally watch My Strange Addiction on TLC. BTW, there are people literally eating their own mattresses on the regs. You’re trying to tell me that Emma Stone is so “out there?”

Everyone knows that Zooey Deschanel is the queen of quirk, so I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how she’s a perfect example of this attractiveness to quirkiness ratio. In her show New Girl, Deschanel’s character named Jess is a fun loving teacher that is always doing “cute” things like talking in the voice of a mid-western newscaster, sobbing on the couch, playing hand bells and having enormous bangs. Somehow, her three male roommates and all of America seem to find this adorable. But try imagining Jess’s character if she had a busted face or was 300 pounds. She would literally be evicted from that apartment before the end of the theme song.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t ever call people quirky, but I do think we should stop pretending that we like quirky people because they’re so “unique.” This isn’t The Breakfast Club, so let’s just admit that we like pretty girls because duh, they’re pretty. Of course they’re going to get compliments when they wear feather earrings. That doesn’t mean you should go out and buy a pair.